John H. Ames Reading Series: Readings by Nebraska Authors

Readings are held Sundays in the Jane Pope Geske Heritage Room of Nebraska Authors. Programs begin at 2:00 PM. Call (402) 441-8516 for information.

Sunday, January 15, 2012, 2:00 PM
Sarah McKinstry-Brown
Sarah was born in Albuquerque, NM, but has lived in Omaha for the past ten years. She has degrees in English and the Fine Arts. Her poem, “Music Appreciation 101” is included in Nebraska Presence: An Anthology of Poetry, published by Backwaters Press in 2007. She has won several awards recently, the Academy of American Poets Prize and the Blue Light Book Award in 2010 as well as the Nebraska Book Award for Poetry in 2011 for Cradling Monsoons, published in 2010 by Blue Light Press.

Sunday, February 19, 2012, 2:00 PM
Susan Grace Dittman
Born in Philadelphia, Susan has lived in a number of places as well as Lincoln. She has degrees from Cornell University and Northwestern University. Her interest in historical writing led her to write Abraham Lincoln's Shining Star: The Inspiring Story of Abraham Lincoln and Nebraska; in it, she connects Nebraska and Lincoln, the only U. S. state capital named after our 16th president, with Abraham Lincoln's influence on the state's formation and development.

Sunday, March 18, 2012, 2:00 PM
Paul Dickey
Paul was born in Kansas, but has lived in Omaha since 1985. He has degrees in Psychology and Mathematics and the History & Philosophy of Science, but has been interested in writing. He has written poetry, fiction, short non-fiction and plays. He also has a poem published in Nebraska Presence: An Anthology of Poetry, "Constellation." His latest book is titled They Say This Is How Death Came into the World, published in 2011.

Sunday, April 15, 2012, 2:00 PM
Mary Helen Stefaniak
A Milwaukee native, Mary Helen grew up in a bicultural household, her father born in Wisconsin and her mother in Georgia; no doubt there is some connection with her most recent novel, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia. A writer of fiction and essays with degrees from Marquette University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she has also written The Turk and My Mother and Self Storage and Other Stories. Mary Helen currently divides her time between Iowa City and Omaha, where she teaches at Creighton University.

All Ames Reading Series programs are taped for later broadcast on 5 City TV, Time Warner Cable Channel 5. The broadcast schedule is available here, and recent programs can be viewed here.

Lists of the first 200 Ames Readings organized by presenter and by date are available here.

Heritage Room